13 Simple Steps For Ranking Position 1 On Google.com.sg

Here is a guide on how you can rank position 1 on google.com.sg via these 13 steps via on-site and off-site optimisation according to the Google algorithm.

1. Understand the opportunity for your site

If you operate in a market where there is a need for clear answers to often-asked questions or you have data that can be presented in a tabular format, then featured snippets are a great opportunity. However, if you are a local enterprise, you should focus on appearing on Google map results. If you run a Singapore e-commerce site that does not have featured snippets, you should get a list of keywords from your competitors as a starting point.

2. Finding good keywords for featured snippets

Keyword research is essential for getting great candidates for featured snippets. Longer queries tend to show featured snippets as well as specific questions such as who, what, why and where. Answer the public.com uses Google Suggest API to find all permutations of a query people are searching on. If you own a Stat account, you can export keywords from Answer the public.com and then upload them into the Stat account to automate the means of determining which questions get a featured snippet in the SERPs.

3. Increasing the possibility of being selected as a Featured Snippet

To increase the chances of being selected for a featured snippet, your content should answer the question and provide positive user engagement signals. Your page should respond to the question then provide information that is more detailed and finally offer a wider look at the topic of interest. The page heading should be the search query, and the answer should not exceed 55 words.

While tagging and content structuring help in ranking position 1, it is imperative to provide the best answer as this is rewarded by Google, customer acquisition, and retention. Start applying these tips in your Singapore online marketing campaigns to rank high and get maximum ROI on Google Singapore.

4. Check the Competition

Once you’ve identified the keywords to target, the next most logical thing to do is to run it on google.com.sg to find out more about your competition and how they’re doing in the SERPs. While at it, it’s crucial that you pay attention to a number of things, including:

• • Their Domain Names

Do the keywords match the domain names used by your competitors? How many of the domain names include the keywords?

• • The Titles

Do the title tags they’ve used feature some of the keywords?

• • The Ranked Content

What type of content do the competitors rank on? Is it product pages, videos, or blog posts?

• • The Ranked Business

Dig out for more details on the type of businesses that are ranked? How many of them are new? How many of them appear like big brands? How many of them are small businesses?

• • Authoritative

You want to find out how authoritative some of the sites actually are. Consider using some of the plugins availed at your disposal to find out more about the top 10 ranked sites in the different result pages. Some of these plugins can even walk you through the finer details of their profile and so much more.

With the information you get, you should be able to come up with a solid plan on how to set yourself apart. You want to find out more about your competitors so you can come up with a well-thought-out strategy on how to beat them.

Ideally, you should be aiming to one-up them in everything. Find out more about what they’re doing, and purpose to do it much better.

5. Factor in the Searchers Intent

Your primary goal should stretch far beyond ranking to ranking in the right set of keywords. You want to target potential prospects and NOT just anyone who queries any random search term.

The point is to be more specific with the type of keywords you choose. Where appropriate, focus on long-tail keywords.

That’s because long-tail keywords make it a whole lot easier to weigh in on the searchers’ intent. That way, you’ll be able to figure out the right type of content to serve them.

With long-tail keywords, you get to reason out like the end user. That is, fit into their shoe and address their needs to the core, after reading their intent and finding out what they’re really interested in.

For instance, where you’re looking to rank for, say, web developers in Singapore; then why NOT break down the keyword further into specifics, by expounding on the type of developer. It can be something along the line of “experienced web developers in Singapore with a heavy portfolio”

Or where you suspect your clients are actually concerned about the cost of hiring one, then consider breaking the keywords along the lines of “the most affordable e-commerce web developer in Singapore.”

Google made it clear: every day they work on coming up with a near-perfect search engine. And that is a search engine that snugly satisfies a searchers interest and needs, such that after

querying in a search term, they don’t have to bounce back and consider trying out a different search term for a better answer.

6. Conceptualize the Content

Don’t just jump into writing. Instead, take some time off and reflect on the bigger picture. Think about what you wish to accomplish with the type of content you post.

In other words, you need to come up with a solid plan on how to leverage content marketing, making sure there’ll be tangible results at the end of it all.

Still, in the line of content, you have a broad range of directions to choose including blog posts, articles, product pages, videos, infographics, directory of links and authoritative guide.

The path you choose will, for the most part, depend on the length of time you’d use to create content. Do you have the resources to pull it off? What’s your budget?

The best part about content marketing is that it’s possible to pull it off with any amount of budget. You have the option of bootstrapping or writing the content yourself. However, if you’re looking to incorporate videos and infographics into your marketing strategy, then you’ll need to allocate a budget for it.

7. Execute

This is where things get a little murky – the action part.

What you so far have is theorized plan of what you wish to do and achieve. Now onto the most critical segment of your content marketing strategy – execution.

No need to rush through any of these steps, particularly this one.

For starters, you have to bear in mind that search engines are mostly interested in the type of content that best addresses their users’ need. They’re interested in the content that’s likely to be more beneficial to the end user – NOT some keyword-stuffed type of content that is specifically targeted at them.

Meaning, the quality of the content you produce takes precedence over all else. If the only reason you’re investing in content marketing is to drive traffic, then you’re better odd investing on paid searches instead.

In other words, SEO is NOT easy – and the best approach to take is to focus on the quality of content you produce and watch as everything else falls in place.

8. Optimize for Keywords

Simple, learn to optimize your keywords naturally while you’re creating the content, and NOT after.

This is where you make good use of the list of keywords you came up with much earlier. The point is to come up with a natural way of leveraging those keywords, instead of taking a more robotic approach.

Black hat SEO tactics don’t have a place here. So, if your plan is to make the keywords invisible by using white texts on a white background, then you’re reminded that a hash Google’s penalty awaits you for violating their policies and guidelines.

Try taking a cue from Wikipedia. If you’ve been keen on observing, you must have noticed that they’re actually doing a bang-on job optimizing the platform for on-page SEO.

Get over the hoopla of publishing a new post, and instead take some time to go through the content again and double check it to make sure that all the keywords you’ve used are in perfect alignment with your content’s context.

9. Publish

At this point, you’re free to go ahead and publish the content you created for the whole world to see.

Don’t be random with your publications. Rather, find a more appropriate time to publish your content and make a mental note to stick by it.

This should be the time where you get the most traction or when you’ve ascertained the content will be attracting most reads.

Where you’re NOT in a position to publish right away, make a point to schedule it. With the exception to evergreen content, you’d want to make sure that the content is tied down to something trendy.

This could be an event, some local news, or any other trend. It’s also crucial that you coordinate with your PR or any other interested party to find a way to connect the content to a service or product you’re offering.

10. Promote it

Your content marketing strategy doesn’t end with you hitting the publish button. For the sake of stating the obvious, immediately you publish any content, the next most logical thing you’re required to do is follow it up with some serious promotion.

You can even start by doing some serious social media outreach before the content goes live. The point is to get the article in front of as many readers as you possibly can before it even gets a chance to be indexed and ranked.

So how do you promote your content?

• Share Your Content Across Various Social Media Account

Common sense dictates you start by sharing the content across any social media account you have access to. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn, share the content around with the corresponding post links that people will be using to read the rest of it.

• Use Social Buttons to Encourage the Post’s Readers to Independently share the Content Around

Your readers may be encouraged to share the article to their respective social media account if you make it easy for them. The good thing with those running their websites on WordPress is that there exist several plugins that you could use to encourage the readers you attract to your site to share it around with just a simple click of a button.

• Link Building

Google made it clear a while ago that they’ll be using backlinks as one of the elements that determine how well you rank in the SERPs. That’s because link-building still stands as one of the most crucial segments of SEO.

First, make sure the post is optimized for on-page SEO, and afterward, aim to link the post to a couple of other sites for some little bit of link-generated traffic juice.

11. Track Results and Analyze

You’re parsec away from getting done here. For what’s worth, content marketing is an ongoing practice that allows you to keep working on it and making necessary improvement and adjustments where necessary until you’re finally able to achieve the desired results.

You can start by checking how your keywords rank manually. And while at it, make sure you’re signed out of Google to avoid getting personalized results. Or better, consider using a rank checking tool.

With some tools, it’s even possible to come up with a list of keywords the piece of content is ranked for. There’s a fair possibility that the content may be ranked for different keywords than the ones you had initially targeted.

And in the off chance you find out that the content is NOT ranked in the right keywords, that means you’ll be required to go through it once more and make necessary adjustments where appropriate or consider investing your time and effort in coming up with an entirely new piece of article that’s specifically aimed to target those keywords.

What’s important is for you to make sure that your content is:

• • Truly Optimized
  • Truly High Quality
  • Truly Visible

Don’t forget the possibility of having chosen highly competitive keywords. If this is the case, then you’ll have to scale back your ambitions by focusing on a list of less competitive keywords until you finally manage to acquire the much need authority within the industry you’re in.

12. User Experience/ RankBrain

Google started using AI to better their ranking system. Christened as RankBrain, this form of technology basically focuses on using a series of signals that together determine how well your site ranks:

These signals include:

• • Your Click-through rate

How many of the people that view your link in the SERPs actually click through it to check you out? The more the number of click-through rate, the better you’ll be ranked in the SERPs.

• • Bounce Rate

This is simply the percentage count of the people who immediately hit the exit button upon landing on your website. It’s basically interpreted as the number of people who didn’t find your web content relevant to what it is that they were looking for.

• • Dwell Time

This is the average duration of time that your site’s visitors actually stayed on your site.

Simple, when the bulk of Google users hit the exit button almost immediately upon landing on your site, Google will be tempted to think the site is NOT relevant to the user’s need. So they’ll push it further down the search engine ladder and replace it with something that’s more relevant.

And if people continue doing this, Google will keep on dropping you further down until you disappear into oblivion.

In contrast, if more people are clicking through the link to check you out and afterward opting to hang in for longer, Google will interpret your content as relevant to what their users are searching for and as such rank you favorably.

To sum it up, while optimizing your titles, descriptions, and the actual content for more clicks, it’s crucial that you focus on delivering quality. Try to fit into the shoe of the end user. Were you the user on the other end, will be the content satisfy your needs?

If not, then you don’t need to be reminded that you’ve got some serious work to do.

13. Real Business Information

As a local business in Singapore, your target is with the local prospects. You want to make sure that you’re directing much of the Singapore based traffic to your website or landing page, and that’s because that’s where the bulk of your market is based.

Google has always been in the clear about their stand with regards to how they factor real business information in its ranking methodology.

So while drafting your business information, it’s important that you consider looking into all the vital areas such as:

• • NAP

That’s the name, address and the phone number of your business. It’s what people use to track down your business or contact you just in case they wish to reach you.

• • Business listing

Make a point to list your business on Facebook and Google My Business to improve on your local visibility.

• • Reviews

Where possible, make sure you’re reviewed by popular review sites and local directories such as Yelp.

• • Optimize Your Business Information

Scour the net for all the local search terms your visitors might use and consider including them into your business information. That’s to say you have to find a way to optimize your business info as well for a prime ranking in the local SERPs.

Rank Zero On Google.com.sg

Ranking position one on www.google.com.sg is coveted by many Singapore site owners especially those that operate in a competitive market. However, you can “rank position zero” using featured snippets since they are more related to actual content on your page rather than the link metrics. Singapore SEO agencies can use snippets to rank position 0 even if they appear on the second page of Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Featured snippets appear above the standard search results and contain the URL, page title and a snippet of the content on the page.

Below is an example of a conventional paragraph type of a featured snippet.

 

Wrap It Up

Local SEO is not difficult, but it’s certainly not a strategy for the lazy. So unless you’re willing to pump in the hours and consistently work on elevating your status in the organic search, then there certainly isn’t much for you to gain from it.

That’s pretty much like it. Everything you need to follow to rank on Google.com.sg for a long list of keywords. Whatever niche your business is in, the process remains the same. So go through the list and get started before your competitors take a jump on you.